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Thursday, April 21, 2011


Google Invites You to Edit the U.S. Map

ARTICLE DATE:  04.19.11

By  Sara Yin

Google has invited "citizen cartographers" to refine the U.S. map for Google Maps and Google Earth.


"Today we're opening the map of the United States in Google Map Maker for you to add your expert local knowledge directly. You know your neighborhood or hometown best, and with Google Map Maker you can ensure the places you care about are richly represented on the map. For example, you can fix the name of your local pizza parlor, or add a description of your favorite book store," Google wrote in a blog post.

Google Map Maker lets you add places, "lines" (like railroads or back alleys), and "shapes" (like a parking lot or Laundromat) to a map. Google has also embedded street-level images from Street View directly into Map Maker for easier navigation.

Although some publications are comparing the feature to Wikipedia, the crowd-sourced online encyclopedia, there is one key difference: Google has to review and approve each edit before it gets posted on Google Maps. In Wikipedia, people can make live changes that stay in an entry until a volunteer webmaster detects an error and pulls it down.

The Map Maker tool has been around since 2005 and available in 183 other countries, but up till now Google hasn't promoted the product much in the United States, instead putting other services like Google Street View and Google Earth front and center. In March, Google blogged about how 60 women in Nairobi, Kenya got together to map their city online with Google Map Maker. Google also pointed to a map of IIT Bombay as another Map Maker-refined map.


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Publisher and/or Author and/or Managing Editor:__Andres Agostini ─ @Futuretronium at Twitter! Futuretronium Book at http://3.ly/rECc